


The Bridge to Trollmarket

by lafemmedefandomwrites



Category: Trollhunters (Cartoon)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-11-01 21:29:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10930410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lafemmedefandomwrites/pseuds/lafemmedefandomwrites
Summary: A Trollhunter!Strickler AU





	The Bridge to Trollmarket

On the 15th of April 1452, Leonardo Da Vinci was born in the Republic of Florence. Richard III was still king of England. The War of the Roses had three years left in the oven before it blew up the oven and the kitchen around it.

In Yorkshire, in June, a baby was born, lived past a week, and was named Walder after his grandfather. In July, it was what they called the changeling who’d been placed in the baby’s crib.

Nobody knew about that last bit.  

He grew to trip and gangle, skinny and underfed as every other peasant farmer’s son. His mother and father loved him, and early on he decided he loved them back. Every fortnight he crept to the leaning hut they called a stable, knelt next to Nell the mule and told the goblin waiting there he had nothing to report. 

When he was old enough to march under a banner and hold a crooked spear, the goblins began to come with instructions:  _slip by this tent and tell us what you hear; climb a tree and try to count the numbers of fires in camp._  He cared not why, nor where his information went. His mother and father were safe and received his pennies’ wages. He did as he was told and betrayed no one. 

One day they told him to walk into the woods.  _Take a human with you. Take a knife. Find a circle of stones and leave the human in it._  Walder tried not to care, but it didn’t work. He realized there was no one who would go with him whom he would not want to bring back. He could always make people laugh, at ease with ale and gab. Men clapped him on the back where his sunburns were reddest because theirs were just as bad. They sent shadow monsters after each other between the light of a fire and a tent when the night was too dark for even the moon to venture into. 

Walder had sprinted past caring and run head-on into the stone wall of finding he had made friends. He began to stall, and the goblins to bite and curse and scratch. They came in packs and hissed a name he did not understand.  _Impure, do your duty. Little_ bulablud _, do as you’re told, or we shall eat you up!_

The Welsh pigboy who followed them and sharpened their spears ‘just like a real squire’ was the first to notice the bruises and rust-stained sleeves. He filched bandages and salves and demanded Walder sit as he wrapped his arms tighter than his size suggested he could do.

“Mum was a bonesetter,” he said, “she taught me how to get people not to squirm.” Then he raised Walder’s arm, appraising his handiwork with a smile fond and proud, and Walder returned it as his chest felt too tight for his lungs.

_The boy_ , they hissed one night.  _The fleshbag boy and no other, or we shall eat him up, and save you for last so you can **watch.**_

Walder took him into the woods. He dragged him far away from any army or stone circle, gave him a bag with some rations and ordered him to run. 

The boy gaped, confused and frightened, looking from his bag to the knife in Walder’s trembling hand—to his eyes, turning red with the fight behind them.

He turned and disappeared in the trees.

Cold dread squashed the warm flicker of relief in Walder’s veins. Then as he stood there, gripping the knife, white-knuckled and afraid, he heard a voice whisper his name, and something twinkled in the grass.

 

**Author's Note:**

> It's finally on AO3! Thanks to all you dears who read and enjoy this story on Tumblr, and welcome to all new friends! Additions will be irregular due to work and uni, but feel free to help me speed up the writing process with comments (and maybe some kudos). Second chapter's in the works and soon to follow. Be seeing ya!


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